The VW Bus has long been an icon in Eugene, generally associated with the counterculture that blossomed here starting in about 1967, and gave the town a rep. But Eugene’s association with the VW bus predates that by a few years; this pictures shows some of the 2o VW buses that made up Eugene’s bus system in about 1960 or so, called the Emerald Transportation System. Somewhat ironically, it was a driver-owned collective, formed in 1958 after the last private bus company went bankrupt. Undoubtedly some of these buses were recycled into genuine hippie buses after this noble effort finally petered out after some years.

This rather desperate attempt to keep some form of public transport going marks the low point in Eugene’s and America’s public transport history. Like so many smaller-medium cities in the US, public transit was once an important and thriving enterprise. One hundred years ago, Eugene had a successful private electric trolley/train system with six lines. By the mid-late 1920s, it started being supplanted and replaced by buses. After WWII and the explosive use of cars, the bus company declined, and eventually went bankrupt, resulting in the VW bus cooperative. But by the early 70s, with federal funding becoming available for capital investments, the Lane Transit District was formed. And now, Eugene is one of the pioneering adopters of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) technology.

Eugene’s first trolley line in 1893 was mule powered, seen here with driver Wiley griffon, one of Eugene’s pioneering black residents. It ran from downtown to the University of Oregon. But it shut down after some ten years.

In 1907, the Eugene and Eastern Railway Company brought electric trolley service to Eugene and connecting service to Springfield. Here one of them is seen on Willamette Street, Eugene’s main thoroughfare downtown.

The lines served the then-compact city very effectively, including a loop through what is now my neighborhood (College Hill/Friendly Street Area).

Here’s the College Crest trolley, in what is now our neighborhood before it was developed. The trolley undoubtedly played a role in that. There are still a few places where the tracks can be seen in the streets.

There are now good pictures readily available of the buses that served Eugene after the trolley lines were taken down. But in this postcard from about 1962 or so, it appears that the green bus on Willamette Street in traffic says “City Bus” on it. This is almost the same shot as the one a few photos up.

Lane Transit Distric was formed in 1970, funded by a payroll tax for its operations. Federal grants paid for all/most of the equipment, and LTD started with 20 new GMC TDH-4523 ‘New Look’ buses, one of which I caught here in its post-transit life. These served well into the new millennium, but were eventually supplanted and replaced with modern buses.

Lane Transit District opened its first BRT line (“EMX”) in 2007, and now has two major lines operating. A third line is under construction and two more are in the planning phases. These buses run on a mixture of dedicated lanes and regular roadways, which allows faster schedules and easier loading-unloading, as the buses have doors on both sides.

The 60′ articulated buses are built by New Flyer, and use an Allison diesel-hybrid drive train. Based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, New Flyer has quite a convoluted history, starting in 1930, and called Western Flyer Coach after 1948. After struggles in the 1960s, it was eventually sold to the Manitoba government, and called Flyer Industries.

In 1986, it was bought by Jan den Oudsten, a descendant of the Dutch bus maker Den Oudsten Bussen BV, and renamed New Flyer Industries. New Flyer was a pioneer in introducing low floor buses to North America. By 2001, New Flyer had captured 50% of the NA transit bus market. In 2002, it was sold to a private equity fund, KPS. New Flyer has two plants in the US that build the buses destined for US transit systems. Some of those are undoubtedly heading to Eugene.

14 Comments

I am charmed by the collective with the VW buses. So many public bus services both charge too much, go around practically empty, and don’t do anything to keep off non paying homeless. It seems the transit system exists to bring in federal money to towns.

On paper, streetcars are the answer, but the expense is so outweighs the potential ridership that it is hard to justify even just a local 20% expense match. The inability of the government to actually see a project through from start to finish is also a big obstacle.

Smaller cities generally lost their bus systems in the ’60s, so Eugene was typical by population.

But….. Many college towns managed to keep a bus system going with heavy subsidies from the college. Even now the fares are nearly free, as in a dime or quarter. So Eugene was not typical in that sense.

My hometown, Henderson, Kentucky, a community of approximately 28,000 people (now, there were fewer 50 years ago) has had some sort of bus service for as long as I can remember. When I was 10-11 years old it cost a dime to ride the bus; I haven’t ridden one of their buses since I was in high school so I don’t know how much it is now. I’m sure it is more than a dime and I’m sure that is heavily subsidized.

Where I live now (Evansville, Indiana) is a larger community and has always (at least in my memory) had bus service as well. I know for a fact this service is heavily subsidized. For the most part the buses circulate around town with just the driver and a passenger or two; the exceptions would be morning and evening commuter hours. It would probably be cheaper just to run the buses from 6:00 AM to 8:00 AM and again from 3:30 to 5:30 PM, and the rest of the time just give everyone who needs a ride a voucher for a cab.

I understand that moving 40 people in one vehicle is more efficient than moving 40 people in 20 vehicles. However, these savings disappear when most of the time the 40 passenger vehicle only has one or two people riding. I don’t really have any answers for this; on the list of the way our governments waste money, mass transportation doesn’t aggravate me as much as some of the others.

Richmond is supposed to be getting a BRT line in the next few years. It’s a very short run–not quite 8 miles end-to-end–but considering it is planned to run right through the middle of downtown and the built-up areas on either side of it, it just might work. Right now to take a city bus on that same 8 mile stretch would probably take close to an hour due to stoplights and traffic. Dedicated lanes and proper synchronization with the downtown corridor lights should help cut down that time quite a bit

Yes. It’s been in the news quite a bit lately because it was discovered that the actual costs to build the line are something like double or more than what was originally estimated when the project got started. As in, normal governmental funding procedures.

It looks like a hopeful project, the biggest weakness being that it doesn’t extend nearly far enough. From the center of town (state capital, federal courthouse area) to the far western suburb of Short Pump (where the suburban development seems to have stopped due to county lines) is something like 15-16 miles, so the proposed system doesn’t do nearly enough to enable transportation between the two areas.

However, its a start. Assuming it isn’t completely made a mess of in implementation. Something the city of Richmond has a knack for doing.

This sort of endeavor fascinates me. I’m just old enough to remember seeing the old trolley car tracks throughout Cape Girardeau (current population is just under 40k), MO when I was a youngster. Even then I though their removal was a shame.

Several years ago I took a tour of the main bus terminal and garage for the St. Louis city buses. That place so appealed to the inner geek in me. They had maintenance on those buses down to a science (“we know the door frames will fail at around 250,000 miles, so we replace it at 225,000”) and they could tell when an engine issue was brewing prior to it being noticed by the driver. It was very compelling.

I say that as I hope Eugene continues to have a successful bus service. Something tells me it will.

What Jan den Oudsten did was basically copy/paste the Dutch Den Oudsten plant to (New) Flyer Industries, including the low floor buses Den Oudsten was already working on. Groups of American employees also worked in the Dutch plant temporarily.

Interesting stuff. I was in Springfield last week and saw the BRT lanes … they looked a lot more formal than other urban bus lanes I’ve seen, but were empty when I passed. I didn’t expect to learn about them on CC!

Cool picture of the “Emerald Transportation” fleet-I always wondered if anyone had tried this, and now I know someone did! I’m sure those VWs were a tight fit for drivers and passengers alike but I wonder if a modern version of one might be a more efficient way of providing service to those low-ridership lines.
(Or if that’s still too wasteful, we can always just order a couple more of these…)